Girl with Hay Rake (nga.gov)
(In Public Domain)
Second Granddaughter – 09/13/21
…and she stopped, paused for just a moment, she thought, though why she stopped, why she paused or for how long she would be still, she did not know, but…it was right, it was good, it was…yes, as if a hand and a gentle voice had bid her to stop. And she did, even though it was her wont to just stride with purpose and strength to the upper field leveling off just ahead…another thirty more steps ahead…she would count…when she started again, when she was finished with her stop…when the pausing hand lifted and she would continue on her way…but she knew even then…perhaps a gentle voice had already spoken, had already said softly a few words that when she continued again, it would not be as usual…no, but what it would be… Betsy, her friend, from two farms over, had left…forty-seven days ago…yes, she just counted, and she had said goodbye a few days before Betsy left. And Betsy in high spirits, as she always was, was going to Boston for higher schooling, a waste of time and money many said, some scoffing and joking, a few angry… Her mother took her, her father stayed behind to care for the fields and livestock, but she had heard him say that he was happy to pay, at least what he could, and the people said what could you expect from foreigners, for the mother was from Boston and the father from Worcester both with fancy ideas and, and… And the hand still stayed upon her…and at church the reverend always spoke of godly men moved by the Holy Spirit, the hand of God… including himself it seemed, for his eyes were always looking to heaven, and never she heard that the Lord spoke to women and girls, or stopped and paused them to think, or hope and dream, or to pray about these things, and he had never said the girls were to pray or hope for anything different, but maybe she could hope and pray and maybe in time there would be something different and maybe she could to go to higher school and…pray and… The hand that paused gently lifted as if with kindness, and after a moment she was on her way up fifty-two steps up the slope and yes, it was not as usual, and at the top, nearer to God, she spoke to the Lord, it was prayer, and the voice that stopped her, now it seems, directed her heart and mind and hands…
The Gods of organized religion rarely talk to girls and women about higher education…